Walking In Spirit

God, Revelation, and Authority

Written in a time when the theological pendulum had swung to the far left of liberalism, previous editor of Christianity Today and Baptist theologian Carl F. H. Henry produced this six volume work in order to challenge the authenticity of the beliefs and convictions of theologians and Christians. Insightful beyond the day it was written, readers will find that his predictions about trends in theology are not only directly relevant to the intended audience, but they still ring true thirty years later.

Summary

Adamant about the need for having Christ as the foundation of our faith and the Scriptures as the authoritative norm, Carl Henry begins this thesis with a comprehensive look at where modern men, Christians and theologians have aligned themselves theologically. Even at the time of this writing, you can sense the early whiffs of post-modern thought processes beginning to be fleshed out. Henry notes that not only has the modern man started to rebel against the authority of the Bible, but he has started rebelling against all authority in general (7). Henry points out that “Disbelief now stems from claims that finalities and objective truth simply do not exist; the good and true are declared to be only revolutionary by-products and culturally relative perspectives” (9). There is a cultural plea to have our own words and ideas become the authoritative norm over Scripture. The idea that everything we perceive as good or evil should be filtered based on the culture in which we live is at the very root of our rebellion and the subsequent attacks that stem from them. These very attacks started in the Garden and Henry lays out each of these attacks and offers a proper defense from Scripture.

Even though attacks on Scriptural authority ultimately still come down to the serpent challenging the word of God, there are four main areas that Henry focuses on for the attack of Scriptural authority. These four main areas are the authority of the apostles, the authority of the Old Testament prophets in relation to the New Testament, the authority of Jesus and, finally, the authority of the written words of God Himself. Each of these areas are attacked not from a biblical perspective, but from a perspective of man’s own thoughts as established by cultural norms, social norms, experience, invalid critical thought, or textual criticism.

Apostolic-Prophetic Authority Through Jesus

The first three attacks are on the very authority of Jesus, along with the apostles and prophets that are attributed as the inspired writers of the Old and New Testament. In all cases and at all times, no authority is self-derived. It all comes from God. As Henry points out, when we speak of authority and power, it is “authority and power that the living God alone can wield underivedly and unrestrictedly” (26). It is this same authority and power that is given to the Old Testament prophets, Christ, and His disciples, and it is the same authority and power “bestowed by Christ that alone enables anyone to enter the kingdom of God” (26).

Our only source for knowledge concerning Christ’s authority and that He conferred it to the apostles, comes from the New Testament (27). The recorded proof that the Old Testament prophets and the apostles were given authority comes from the acts and miracles that were performed through them. Although the miracles and acts of the prophets and apostles were recorded for proof of their authority, “Paul always emphasizes that the apostolic commission derives from God Himself and that the work of an apostle required authorization by the risen Jesus” (29). Says Henry, “God is the authority who renders Scripture authoritative; inspiration is the special phenomenon that imparts this character of divine authority to the writings and logically necessitates fulfillment of written prophecies” (75). Like the Old Testament prophets, the apostles were also bearers of divine revelation. It was “only because God has made them bond slaves and constituted them verbal mouthpieces is what the apostles proclaim binding upon us” (30). In all, we must remember that Jesus is the promised Messiah. “The same authority first delegated to the apostles for their oral proclamation was later carried over into their writing” (33). By being written down, it could spread more quickly to more places in a more accurate manner. He is the Christ and our redeemer that was promised by the prophets and proclaimed by the apostles at God’s appointment.

Scriptural Authority and the Written Word

The larger of the attacks usually come in the form of logic based attacks on the very written words in Scripture. Henry establishes that Jesus “entrusted the interpretation of His whole life and work to specifically designated apostles...” (36). John 14:26 tells us that the Spirit would bring all things to remembrance to the apostles. They would later write down those things along with the meaning of the events that followed the crucifixion. Also, Christ “dogmatically endorses the Old Testament Scriptures as the authoritative word of God” (35). Henry continues, “The New Testament, in short, fully endorses the authoritative significance of the Old Testament Scriptures as mediating the declaration of God’s revealed will” (34). Of the apostles, Henry says “In their view Scripture is authoritative, because divinely inspired, and as such, is divine truth” (68). The authority of Scripture lies within the written word, not men’s interpretation of it (36). And, written words tend to be considered as more permanent than the spoken word, especially, in a post-modern world hung up on self determination of truth (37). So, with the establishment of the Authority of Christ, the prophets and the apostles, Henry moves on to another area of attack on the authority of Scripture; the very written words themselves.

Throughout the thesis, Henry discusses the nature of culture and our own logical thought processes and it’s affects on our beliefs in the Authority of Scripture. Through the theology birthed from higher criticism, we end up with doctrines that have no authority from Scripture. Henry says “A God who speaks no truths but authoritatively demands obedience, or a Bible that is held to be divinely authoritative although errant, seems to our wary generation far too reminiscent of totalitarian tyranny or literary myth either to serve the cause of biblical authority in its canonical understanding or to elicit trust” (44). No man’s experience can establish the truth. Henry says “In brief, the meaning of truth of any claim must meet the test of rational intelligibility, noncontradiction and consistency or it can only remain suspect” (49). No other source except God’s Word can sufficiently be claimed to settle authority. It is only through faith that Christians can take the Word of God as truth and thus make it authoritative in their lives. If Scripture is then believed to be errant, then there is no longer clear authority to be trusted.

Lastly, Henry addresses our transcendent God’s ability to provide and preserve His revelation to us and whether its words are literally true. That we have the words of God are held in proof by our faith in them. Henry says that one “argument deployed against the literal truth of biblical teaching is that all language and knowledge are culturally conditioned and are therefore relative” (113). These claims, however, are not sufficient because the writers themselves were writing from direct revelation, and not through cultural lenses (115).

Another argument is raised “against the possibility of our knowing literal truth about God is that finite language is too limited to depict the Infinite” (115). This, however, could only be assumed if you were trying to fully explain something infinite. Henry says that “Christianity counters these claims by insisting upon incarnational theology. It teaches that the Word of God not only became flesh but is also conceptually given, verbally expressible, and verbally expressed” (115).

Significance for Baptists Today

Baptists today, as well as most denominations, are being affected more by men’s thoughts today through the bombardment of progressive media outlets and culture than at any other time in the history of mankind. With advent and use of more means than we can count, the ideas of men are flowing at rates so quickly, we cannot even respond to one area of critical attack before five more have expanded on the same thoughts and expanded on them as an authoritative standard.

As I mentioned previously, even though Carl Henry wrote this material more than thirty years ago, it still rings true today. The thoughts and the thought processes that he chose to combat in this work not only abounded in his day, but they continue to plague every aspect of our society still. Having seen the beginnings of the post-modern age, Henry’s insight and work provides a positive direction Baptists should lean towards combating these serious threats.

Today we live in the culture that Henry described as coming to the surface in his time. It is a culture that generally holds to a post-modern worldview where every scrap of knowledge is believed to be relative to each person’s experience and to the norm of their culture. The writings that Henry combats in this article prove two things. The first is that Satan still tries to move the governing authority of men from God to his creation and secondly that since this material was published, there is an active audience seeking to suppress the truth and wanting to rule themselves.
It is imperative that through faith, we bear in mind where all authority and power originates; it is with God Himself. We must have faith that the gospel that we have heard is indeed the truth and that, although they are the words written down by men, they are the words delivered to us from the living God who wishes to have a personal relationship with His creation.

Henry notes that Atheism is the theological starting point of a large portion of our population today in America, not the place where people end up after losing their faith. We must stand strong and repel the attacks we receive from men trying to reason away the Scriptures while bearing the standard of Christ and His cultural norms. We must constantly be on guard to prevent the culture of our world from taking over our congregations and ruling the educational demands of our children. We need to rebut every question of “Hath God said” with “Yes, it is written here” and point to the only source of God’s revelation to his creation, Scripture. Failure to do so will, at least temporarily, leave our societies at the mercy of their own imaginings and lead entire generations down the path of destruction. We cannot let even the smallest portions of Scripture fall to the wayside. The whole truth must be presented, not just the parts that we personally relate to and approve of. It is important that we realize that the authority of Scripture is important in everyone’s life, not just ours. Whether while witnessing, in intercession, or in stewardship of creation, all things fall under the authority of Scripture and our God would have us to live accordingly. After all, the revelation of God’s redemptive plan is our only hope.